Abd al-Qahir al-Jurjani

Abu Bakr Abd al-Qāhir bin Abd ar-Rahman bin Muhammad al-Jurjānī (400 – 471 or 474 A.H.) (died 1078 AD)^[1] was a renowned Muslim scholar of the Arabic language, literary theorist, grammarian and Shafi'i Muslim. al-Jurjānī was an Ahsa'ari descendant, and born in the town of Gorgan in Iran.

al-Jurjānī is said not to have left his home town of Gorgan all his life, yet his reputation reached many Arabic scholars who came to see him. He excelled in the two sciences of ilm al balaghah (eloquence and rhetorical art) and ilm al bayan (a branch of Arabic rhetoric dealing with metaphorical language), which he explained in his two books Asrar al Balaghah (Secrets of Rheotric), and Dala'il al-Ijaz (Intimations of Inimitability). Al-Jurjānī was influenced by his predecessors such as the grammarian Sibawayh, the critic Abi Helal al-'Askari al Balaghi, and the linguist and literary theorist Abu Ali al-Farisi, known for his book al-Idah (Elucidation).

Ali al-Farisi's nephew, Abi al-Hussein Muhammad Bin al-Hassan Bin Abd al-Wareth al-Faressi al-Nawawi, was al-Jurjānī's teacher, and taught al-Jurjānī the al-Idah. Later al-Jurjānī was to write a thirty-volume work of commentary on al-Idah entitled al Maghna fi Sharh al-Idah .

In modern critical opinion

In his volume Asrar al-Balaghah, Muhammad Abdul Mun'em Khafagi writes "the Swiss linguist Saussure's theory of deconstruction is preceded by Abd al-Qāhir al-Jurjānī’s theory of deconstruction".^[2] Also, in the introduction of Muhammad Abdul Muttaleb's book Issues of Modernism in the Works of Abd-al-Qāhir al-Jurjānī, Muttaleb writes of al-Jurjānī and Noam Chomsky "there is a similarity between these two men".^[3]

Publications

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• Al Maghna fi Shar’h al-Idah’, thirty volumes
• Al Muq'tasad, a short version of Al Maghna.
• 'I'jaz al-Qur'an (The inimitability of the Qur'an)
• Kitab 'Aroud (Poetic Structure)
• Al-'Awamel al-Mi'ah (The Hundred Elements)
• Al–Miftah (The Key)
• Shar'rh al-Fateha fi Mujallad (Explaining Al-Fatiha in a Volume)
• Al-'Umhad fi al-Tasreef (The Basis of Morphology)
• Al-Jumal (Sentences)
• Al-Talkhiss bi Sharhihe (The Brief of Sentence Elucidation)
• Asrar al-Balaghah (The Secrets of Elucidation)
• Dala'il al-I'jaz (Intimations of Inimitability)
• An anthology collection on the works of Abi-tammam, al-Buh'turi, and al-Mutannabi.

References

• Deeb, K. Abu. al-Jurjānī, Abū Bakr Abd al-Qāhir b. Abd al- Rahmān (d. 471/1078). Encyclopaedia of Islam. Edited by: P. Bearman, Th. Bianquis, C.E. Bosworth, E. van Donzel and W.P. Heinrichs. Brill, 2007. Brill Online.
• Encyclopedia of Literary Critics and Criticism. V. 1 A-K. Consultant John Sutherland; edited by Chris Murray. London: Fitzroy Dearborn, 1999.
• Abbs, Ihsn. Tarikh al-Naqd al-Adabi 'inda al-'Arab, Naqd al-Shi'r min al-Qarn al-Thani hattá al-Qarn al-Thamin al-Hijri. History of Arabic Literary Criticism. Beirut: Dr al-Amnah, 1971. (A comprehensive study of Arabic literary criticism from the second century to the eighth century AH. It covers most of the literary critics from al-Asma'ei to Ibn-Khaldoun.)
• Abd Al-Qāhir Al-Jurjānī. Asrar al-Balaghah. Edited by: Khafagi, Muhammad Abdul Mun'em, and Abdul Aziz Sharaf. Beirut, Dar Al Jeel, 1991.
• Abd Al-Qāhir Al-Jurjānī. Asrar al-Balaghah in the Art of Rhetoric. Edited by: Al Imam Al Sheikh Mohammad Abdo, and Mohammad Rashid Ridah. Midan Al Azhar, Mohammad Ali Subeih, 6th ed. 1959.
• Abi Bakr Abd al-Qāhir bin Abd al-Rahman bin Mohammad al-Jurjānī, al-Jummal. Edited by: Ali Haydar, Damascus, 1972.
• Abi Bakr Abd al-Qāhir bin Abd al-Rahman bin Mohammad al-Jurjānī, al-Jummal in Grammar. Edited by: Usri Abd al-Ghani Abdallah. Beirut, Dar Al Kutub al Ilmieh, 1st ed 1990.

External links

• "Summary of Disagreements Between at-Taftazani and al-Jurrujani" is an Arabic work, dating from 1805, which compares Abd al-Qahir al-Jurjani's work to the work of Taftazani
• Works by Abd al-Qahir al-Jurjani at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)